MYSTERIES OF SPACE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20519, 21 March 1930, Page 11

MYSTERIES OF SPACE.

marvels in universe.

COMPLICATED MOTIONS. [FROM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT. ] VANCOUVER, Feb. 5. The R6yal Astronomical Society has awarded its gold modal to Dr. J. S. Plaskett, F.R.S., Director of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory at Victoria, British Columbia, and has asked him to deliver the annual George Darwin Lecture in London in the spring. Dr. Plaskett's newest discovery, for which the award of the Royal Society WWS made, has been translated into unscientific language to mean that every star within the vision of the most powerful telescope, and every other body for billions of miles beyond tlicin, is lotating about a centre inconceivably distant from this earth. The motions of the speck of matter known as our world are thus said to be far more complicated than has usually been supposed, although the theory now established by Dr. Plaskett has been suggested as possible before. First, it is explained, the world rotates on its own axis in a motion which gives day and night. This motion is at the rate of 28,000 milts in 24 hours. The world also goes around till sun once a year, providing the change in seasons, this tour being conducted at the rate of 18£ miles a second. Secondly, the earth moves with the sun in another circle, this being independent, apparently, of the great universal movement which Dr. "Plaskett has been investigating. Thirdly, as Dr. Plaskett explains, the earth, the sun, the moon and every tiny point of light visible to astronomers is travelling in a circle of almost unimaginable diameter. Its centre appears to be in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, and is so distant that light from there would take 47,000 years to reach the earth.

Travelling at incredible speed through space, all the heavenly bodies within men's ken are going over distances which it is difficult for the human mind to comprehend. Dr. Plaskett estimates that it requires 300,000,000 years for the visible universe to complete its great journey around its distant centre. The movement is at the rate of about 200 miles a second.